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Saturday, 6 September 2014

OMG - how sterile has PN criticism become!

After many months of baseless accusation that that PL had stolen Australia Hall (AH) from public property and would be selling it for their own benefit for ten million Euros the PN ended with an egg on their face when public documents proved that:

1. PL had acquired AH in exchange for its former HQ in Marsa in a valuable tract of land in the inner harbor which housed the Malta Shipbuilding and will now house the marine centre.

2. The PN had challenged this exchange in court but abandoned their case when they realized they had no grounds.

3. PL had sold on a legally binding preliminary agreement AH for some half a million Euro in 1997 and consideration had been settled in kind and cash.

4. The preliminary agreement could not be executed because of the court case instituted by the PN and eventually after this was abandoned another court case instituted in 2008 by PN government seeking to recover the property for alleged breach of conditions.

5. When finally the deed of sale of AH was executed last July after a PL government withdrew the vexatious case about breach of conditions ( how could such conditions be honored if titled was being contested and sale was being blocked) PL received nothing on the contract as the payment in kind and cash was made at the time the preliminary agreement was signed in 1997 or soon thereafter.

When they realized they had an egg on their face the PN argued that PL had understated the true value of the property on deed in order to avoid taxes. But they forgot that political parties are tax exempt on their revenues so they finished with a double egg on their face.

Trying to salvage their rock bottom credibility they then argued that the low price helped the buyer to avoid taxes and that the PL was aiding and abetting in such tax avoidance.

Now if this were true there are civil institutions which could challenge the contract price if they deem that it was artificially low. But how can one argue that it was artificially low if the price was fixed in the preliminary agreement of 1997. If the the PL could have sold AH at its current commercial value they would have gladly done so but they had a legal obligation through the preliminary agreement of 1997 which was binding and effective.

So is it true that the price was understated on the deed of sale? Absolutely not.

If there were no preliminary agreement then it would have been correct to argue that the price was understated. But as the property was subject to a preliminary agreement which restricted its marketability so much so that PL could not accept a higher offer from any other bidder, the the price subject to the existent limitations was the correct market price. Nothing more and nothing less.

PN should reserve their energies to cleansing the financial mess their party is in rather than invent fabricated stories of corruption on PL.